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Shiga Naoya/Trivia
* He was born as the eldest son in a wealthy family of the elite former samurai class and attended the Peers' School (a prestigious institution for nobility and imperial heirs). * He was known to like bikes a lot. When he was 13 years old, he got an expensive bike from his grandparents which he loved a lot. He often used it to move between places, rarely walking. * Shiga was once close friends with Arishima Takeo's younger brother Arishima Ikuma. When Ikuma was planning to go to Europe to study art, he entrusted his and Takeo's younger brother Satomi Ton to him, who he had had a brotherly relationship with since their childhood. When Ikuma got back to Japan years later, Ikuma's attitude pissed him off and eventually the two stopped being friends. **His relationship with Ton was rather complicated too through their lives. Early on they were like brothers, and at some point like lovers (they shared crushes on same guys and Ton admired Shiga also quite a lot). But most importantly, they constantly had fights over minor matters and eventually had a break, until after some time they reconciled and remained friends until the end of their lives. * He majored in English literature at Tokyo Imperial University, but withdrew later on to found the Shirakaba magazine together with several other graduates of the Peers' School, one of which was Mushanokouji Saneatsu, the group's leader and the magazine's editor-in-chief. * He passed the physical examination and was enlisted into the army, but was discharged 8 days later for unknown reasons. * He fell in love with the family's maid and wanted to marry her in 1907, but his father was against it. Mushanokouji and Takeo tried to help him out, but their efforts were in vain and the maid was later dismissed. This caused Shiga and his father's relationship to get strained even more than it had been before. * In 1913 August 15th, after spending a day together with Ton, he got hit by a train on their way back home. It is still even now unclear if he was drunk, but according to few sources he had been walking on or way too near the tracks. It was a miracle that after spending 12 days in hospital, he got discharged and later the same year he went to Kinosaki to recover. He had been told that if he wasn’t careful next few years, he would develop tuberculosis which would have killed him. Luckily, he recovered and lived a long life after the said accident. After some years, he wrote "At Kinosaki" (Kinosaki nite) which is based on this incident and his stay in the place known for its hotsprings. * In 1914, he married Kadenokouji Sadako, Mushanokouji Saneatsu's cousin, at the Mushanokouji House. As a result of this marriage, Shiga completely broke relations with his father and disinherited himself due to their strained father and son relationship. The two reconciled few years later in 1917, mostly because of his firstborn's death in 1916 and there being no place to bury her at. * He received the Order of Culture in 1949, together with Tanizaki Junichirou. * He was known to have rather unusual charm, which attracted people. This added to his pretty straightforward nature has been said to be one of the reasons why he had so many friends, but also foes. * He designed his own residence in Takahata, Nara Prefecture, and lived there for 10 years until he moved to Kamakura. It has a lounge which used to be the place of assembly for many Shirakaba writers, painters and generally Western culture enthusiasts, including Kobayashi Takiji, Tanizaki Junichirou, Mushanokouji Saneatsu, etc. to discuss literature and art. Later on this room gained the name Takahata Salon. * Most of his works were written early on his life, specifically between 25 and 45 years old. Later in life, there simply was not anything for him to write about. * Several of his short stories are required readings in the Japanese middle-school and high-school curriculum. * His works are characterized by a focus on the personal life of one man; avoidance of obvious fictionalization in favor of 'sincerity'; and a preference for simple language rather than flowery prose. * It took him 26 years to complete his only long work and masterpiece, "A Dark Night's Passing" (An'ya Kouro). It was originally planned to start as Tokitou Kensaku in 1918, but the serializing promise was broken while Shiga was writing and thought he wouldn't want to write popular literature. Then in 1921 thanks to Akutagawa Ryuunosuke and Takii Kousaku (a reporter and Kawahigashi Hekigotou's disciple), the work started to serialize under it's new name in magazine Kaizou. Shiga continued writing it until 1928 when troubles trying to write actively one long work made him give up midway. It remained unfinished until 1937, when Kaizou was planning to publish a collection of his works. "A Dark Night's Passing" is said to be one of the representative works of modern Japanese literature. * He was acknowledged as the master of autobiographical I-novels, and he is celebrated as the most "Japanese" modern writers. However, he's often been criticized for wanting to abolish Japanese and make French the national language. * Akutagawa Ryuunosuke admired his works to the point of calling Shiga's style his creative ideal, and once told a friend that "All of my works put together would not be equal to a single Shiga". He later on praised Shiga's style in the famous debate over Pure Literature with Tanizaki Junichirou. ** In contrast, some of his vocal critics included the writers of the Decadent School, namely Dazai Osamu and Oda Sakunosuke. * He was a huge animal-lover, which explains the amount of different pets and wild animals he kept or took care of through his life. The list includes huge amount of different dogs, some cats, rabbits, but also wild animals like ducks, tanukis, sparrows, crows, turtles etc. Most notable one was a bear-like animal, which never got identified. Some sources say it was a bear cub, some say it was a huge bear-looking dog. * He died at age 88 due to pneumonia and senility.